


paint me in trust

by frolicsabound



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Light Angst, awkward awkward, confused clem, dorks being dorks, gay/bi disasters being gay/bi disasters, talking about loved ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 09:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16405454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frolicsabound/pseuds/frolicsabound
Summary: Then Violet’s head drooped to her shoulder, and Clementine’s heart, her head, time itself seemed to freeze. “Sorry,” Violet mumbled onto her sleeve, “I haven’t slept for days. Just for a while.”“All good. You need it,” Clementine said, softer than she had intended, and she had to fight not to stutter. Violet mumbled what sounded like a thank you, and grew silent.Or: In which Violet and Clementine seek comfort in each other and Clem realises she's pining.





	paint me in trust

**Author's Note:**

> hi hi this is my first fic so it's gonna suck but pls leave nice comments sobs
> 
> title is derived from 'Human' by dodie, who has inspired me sm and if you haven't yet check out her songs!! they're rlly good and her EP is gonna be released in January!! eeeeeee

“Clem?” She almost flinched in surprise, but she held herself in check. She turned to face Aasim, who unsurprisingly looked solemn and unyielding, more effectively known as the I-don’t-take-shit-from-anyone face so familiar in survivors. Survivors that did whatever it took to survive. Aasim and the other kids hadn’t been so tense when she and AJ first arrived in Ericson’s Boarding School for Troubled Youth, but with the prospect of the very bandits who took Minnie and Soph away turning up any time now, anxiety levels were getting high and a day never passed when someone didn’t lash out or utter something very colorful.

But on the brighter side of things – which was rare enough as it was to find – Clementine noticed that the kids had started to melt around the edges a bit around her and AJ, albeit they still gave the latter a wide berth. She knew it was foolish to hope against hope, but she hoped it meant it would take a little more push before they can find it in what conscience they had left to let the two of them stay after the inevitable battle they would have to face.

But that was less than unlikely.

“Aasim,” Clementine nodded, putting her hand on a hip, and asked cautiously, “Did you need anything?”

“Yeah, actually, uh…” He exhaled a breath through his nose. “Violet’s gone missing. Not past the safe zone” – he added hastily, upon seeing Clem’s eyes widen a fraction – “but I think she’d appreciate it if you went after her. You know. With the way she is.”

Clementine understood exactly what he was implying without voicing it. Violet had never been of the sort to open up to people as quickly as she had to her – a fact that surprised the others who’d known Violet for years. To quote Louis, “Violet, warming up to someone in less than a week? The world might well have ended!”

She gave a small smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Aasim smiled gratifyingly and said, “Thanks.”

Violet had taken the role of foreman when no one did. It had taken a while for everyone to adjust to the shift of leadership – Louis, even more so – and there had been a good deal of bickering about who should be deemed leader, specifically between Violet and Mitch, but by and by Violet proved to be superior in terms of handling everyone and keeping things cool. But it was draining, to say the least.

As Aasim walked away to aid with pushing the tables on their sides, Clementine flicked her eyes to Ruby, who had been helping to put up the barbed wire around the walls of the school with her, and the latter shook her head assuringly before she thought to say something. “I have it handled. You go and get Miss Grumpface and set her right. God knows she could use it,” she mumbled the last bit, brows contracting into a frown, then swivelled round to work on the wall.

Clementine felt a smile tug at her lips when she noted the worry lacing Ruby and Aasim’s voice; it showed that they still really did care about one another, despite it all. Clementine looked around and immediately found who she was looking for. She approached the wall and looked up at the two figures peering over the other side of it and chattering excitedly. AJ brightened up at the sight of her, and he made to climb down.

She crouched down as AJ tackled her for a hug, and she savored the warmth and the contentment that followed after making sure he was doing alright. “Hey, goofball,” Clementine whispered, and let go. She held a hand on his shoulder and searched his face. “AJ, I’m going to find Violet inside the building. Stay on watch with Tenn, okay?”

“Can’t I come with you?” he asked, looking up at her insistently. He added, as an encouragement, “I’m a good finder!”

Clementine chuckled. “No can do, goofball. Besides, a good soldier doesn’t abandon his post.” She ruffled his hair, earning a half-hearted scowl from him. Complying to her wishes, he returned to his station beside Tenn, waving to her. She waved back, smiling somewhat sadly. It was relieving to see that AJ had found someone around his age; he hadn’t had much of a childhood he could think of fondly, unlike the rest of them. He deserved better.

She turned to the school, and started there.

Sunlight filtered through the windows lining the walls of their makeshift bastion. She kicked up dust from the floors that had once been scrubbed meticulously by janitors, looked at the doodled over posters in the opposite wall and either giggled or grimaced at what she read. She looked inside every room she came across in search for Violet, and before long she caught sight of golden hair through a door left ajar. The music room. Smiling in relief, Clementine reached for the door handle, and when it creaked Violet whirled around so fast she could’ve fractured her limbs from the force. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath, exhaling it. “It’s just you, Clem.”

 Clementine raised a brow, inclining her head slightly. “Who did you think it was?”

Violet cast her eyes downward, crossing her arms tightly around her like a shield. “No one, really. With the raiders and everything, I’ve just… been on edge.” She looked up, mouth quirked to the side and brows high. “So who sent you?”

“Aasim. They’re all worried. And me,” Clementine added as an afterthought. She said carefully, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine,” Violet said, assuming a breezy tone of voice, and she leaned back on a table stacked with piles and piles of books. She heaved a sigh. “I just needed a breather from it all.”

“I understand.” Clementine pursed her lips, awkwardly shifting from side to side by the doorway, and wondered if the blonde needed space to think or if she needed company. But before she could turn to leave, Violet fixed her eyes to the piano and motioned to it, asking hesitantly: “Do you play?”

Clementine shook her head no, and took a few steps toward her. “Lee did promise to teach me, though,” she offered, a smile in her lips. But just as suddenly, she retracted it. “He promised me a lot of things.”

 She didn’t mean to talk about something so depressing, but it had slipped from her mouth before she realised it. Violet had given her more than enough a reason to trust her -- she'd defended Clementine and AJ when Marlon had been shot, and voted for them to stay when no one else, save a few, had wanted them to. She'd never trusted anyone as much for years since Javier. So apparently, she’d lowered her guard enough for her not to choose her words carefully.

Violet paused, then sat on the edge of the seat by the piano, back hunched and forearms resting on her elbows. She left space next to her – a silent request. Clementine walked the remaining distance between her and Violet, and then sat beside her.

“Lee,” Violet started, and said the name slowly as though she were mulling over it. “He saved you, didn’t he?”

“Until his last breath,” Clementine said. Her eyes lined with silver as she conjured up memories from years and years ago, but still too vivid. She could still recall Lee’s gravely pale face, his nonexistent arm, his eyes trying to stay open long enough to tell her what to do. “He was a good man. Helped the group stay together, saw reason in everything. Lee never stopped fighting to protect me, not for one second.” She twitched her lips upward and shifted her eyes to Violet. “What Lee did for me, I’m prepared to do for AJ. To protect him -- whatever it takes.”

Violet nodded, shadows flickering in her eyes from the underlying meaning behind the statement. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re good for AJ. And fuck anyone who says otherwise,” she said.

Clementine swallowed a lump in her throat. “Thank you.” Violet smiled back.

She loosed a breath. “Minnie was my girlfriend.” A truth for a truth. But still, Clementine hadn’t expected her to tell her about it, what with the prejudice surrounding the idea. Not that it mattered now, with the apocalypse going on and all. She and AJ had discovered her and Minnie’s initials carved with a heart around it into the wall of the cabin by the lake, but she’d chosen not to ask. It was nice to know that Violet trusted her back to entrust her something so personal.

Violet looked straight at something in front of her, focusing on it. “She and Soph were the first to talk to me when I first came to the school, when everyone else didn’t even bother to – not with how I was." She shook her head, huffing a laugh. "I looked, and acted, feral."

“More than now?” Clementine flashed her a grin, and Violet elbowed her in the sides, glaring at her weakly, but a faint smile played on her lips. She laughed. “I’m kidding!”

“So yeah, we became best friends forever and made friendship necklaces, and then I fell in love, and all the cheesy shit.” Her brows stuck together into a frown. “And then everything happened, and Marlon fucked up, and now I lay in bed every fucking night thinking about what might have happened to Minnie and Soph when they got taken away.”

A slight tremor laced her voice towards the end, and for a moment Clementine had the strangest urge to squeeze her hand, to wrap her up in her arms and tell her all would be alright, but then she blinked and it faded away.

Her head lowered so that her hair framed her face, Violet hissed, a bit hoarsely, “They didn’t deserve to be treated like a bargaining chip.”

Something in her chest aching from the sound of Violet’s voice, she reached a comforting hand to the small of her back and said, "We'll take them back. We'll take Minnie and Soph back, and then we're going to pay the assholes tenfold what we owe them.” A deadly promise it was. Those people better prepare for the worse.

When at last the blonde looked up, it was with tired eyes that flickered with steely resolve; eyes of a pale green, with a tint of silver. Clementine hadn't noticed how pretty they looked before. “I believe you,” Violet said, and smiled weakly.

Then Violet’s head drooped to her shoulder, and Clementine’s heart, her head, time itself seemed to freeze. “Sorry,” Violet mumbled onto her sleeve, “I haven’t slept for days. Just for a while.”

“All good. You need it,” Clementine said, softer than she had intended, and she had to fight not to stutter. Violet mumbled what sounded like a thank you, and grew silent.

Her heart thumped wildly against her veins, and she prayed the sleeping girl couldn't hear it. She could feel her steadying breath in her skin, her soft hair. Her face burned, and she would’ve frayed the heel of her hand against her cheek as if to rub the blushing away, but she didn't want to move too much. Remembering to breathe, she softly placed her own head atop Violet's and sighed.

_Well, shit._

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading this far!!


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